Victoria Fashion AU

DAILE PEPPER - Miss Universe – the good, the bad and the ugly Miss Universe Australia 2010.

An outfit featuring a sheep skin wool shrug, Aboriginal dot painting top, multi-coloured ruffle skirt and high-heeled ugg boots will showcase to the world our Australian style.

Miss Australia Jesinta Campbell yesterday unveiled the look, made by Sydney designer Natasha Dwyer of label Arthur Ave, she will wear during the national costume portion of the Miss Universe event.

Ms Dwyer said she aimed for an eccentric and exaggerated look when designing the Australian costume.

“I really wanted everyone to get Australia right away,” she said of the look.

“I think its colourful indigenous print says that. I wanted to use our indigenous heritage, which hasn’t been done for a national costume before.”

An elaborate sheep skin shrug is complemented by a cowboy-style belt, with the skirt featuring fishing line lining to add to the textured look.

Ms Dwyer said the “uggettes” she designed “have a little detail on the side”.

“Because the skirt was so heavy you needed something to balance the outfit,” she said of the shoes. “I didn’t think stilettos would work.”

Last year Perth designer Ruth Tarvydas took on the challenge of making the Australian costume worn by Rachael Finch at the Miss Universe final in Las Vegas.

It was inspired by the Sydney Opera House and featured bright colours, a large hat and sexy cut-outs on a slinky gown.

by penylane

Iconic Australian label Mambo has released photos of their new Summer Goddess collection featuring model and pseudo-celeb Cheyenne Tozzi.

Before seeing these images I had totally forgotten about summer. Thirty degrees? What’s that? You mean there was once a time where I subjected myself to a body of water other than my bathtub? I used to wear sandals and sleeveless dresses with bare legs? Really? That actually happened?
 

If the images of a bronzed Tozzi sporting Mambo’s latest range of itty bitty bikinis is anything to go by, not only does Summer exist, but it’s about to heat up very soon. Cue clichéd happy summer time music.

The Aussie It girl was shot at the newly refurbished Sun Studio in Alexandra by leading fashion photographer and soon-to-be judge of Australia’s Next Top Model, Jez Smith. The resulting shots for the campaign showcase a fresh new direction for Mambo with a collection of feminine styles featuring carnival inspired prints, frills and native feathers.

Casting Cheyenne, who has bared her body previously in campaigns for Bonds and Sea Folly, was an obvious choice for the iconic label.

“Cheyenne epitomises the Mambo Goddess brand. She is great fun and yet effortlessly magnificent,” says Angus Kinsgmill, Managing Director of Mambo.  “As always our Mambo Goddess collection is about making our Australian beach goddesses look even hotter.”

By Elle Halliwell – Samantha Harris joins forces with Jess Hart as SEAFOLLY 2010 Ambassador. Picture:Max Doyle / Seafolly Source: The Sunday Telegraph.

THREE years ago, Samantha Harris was a shy model from Tweed Heads struggling to find her feet in front of the camera.

Now, the beautiful 19-year-old has been chosen as the 2010 face of Australia’s biggest-selling swimwear label, Seafolly.

Showing off her toned curves in an itsy-bitsy, red, polka-dot bikini for the label’s summer campaign, Harris posed for this stunning image on Dunk Island last week.

“I was a bit nervous at the start because I’d never shot swimwear before; but after a while, I felt really comfortable and had a great time,” she said.

Harris’s profile has skyrocketed since she graced the cover of the latest Vogue Australia magazine early last month.

She also walked in 18 shows at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week and will appear in Vogue Australia’s August issue, before heading to the US in September for New York Fashion Week.

Harris joins a host of big names to have worked for Seafolly, including Miranda Kerr, Alyssa Sutherland and Catherine McNeil.

Seafolly chief executive Anthony Halas said Harris’s appointment was in no way a response to model Jessica Hart’s recent signing as the face of Myer and Seafolly’s presence at Myer and David Jones stores.

“It’s purely just what was best for our brand,” he said.Harris will join Hart in Seafolly’s campaign launch next month.

“This is her first signing as a brand ambassador,” Mr Halas said.

“‘She’s still shy, which is so nice … but she’s also a fully professional model.”

KELLIE HUSH FASHION EDITOR – Power to thrill … ‘‘Just because the sun shines in Sydney people think it is not creative.’’ Therese Rawsthorne at work in her Marrickville studio. Photo: Wolter Peeters.

AUSTRALIA is shaking off its fashion reputation for itsy-bitsy bikinis and summer frocks, with a new crop of edgy designers ready to play havoc at Australian Fashion Week next month.

Called the Sydney Six, this darker face of Australian design has ditched predictable wearable fashion, instead taking delight in their power to thrill.

In their ranks are labels such as Romance Was Born, Dion Lee, Christopher Esber, Friedrich Gray, Konstantina Mittas and Rawsthorne. ”The market is really hungry for individualism here – there is a hunger for the new,” said Therese Rawsthorne, 33.

”Every time I do what I want to do I’m rewarded in the sales stakes. Just because the sun shines in Sydney people think it is not creative. But we have the best of both worlds: the sun and a creative environment.”

Dion Lee, 24, was the hero of Australian Fashion Week last year with his sharp tailoring. The collection was snapped up immediately after his first solo show and now he feels he has the weight of the fashion world resting on his shoulders to meet or surpass expectations.

Similarly, Ben Pollitt, 28, of Friedrich Gray, who has more fashion awards on his mantel than most, is feeling the pressure, and more creative madness is expected from Romance Was Born’s Luke Sales, 28, and Anna Plunkett, 27. Last year their Iced Vo-Vo dress became part of Australian fashion folklore.

”What’s really good about Sydney right now is there are a lot of talented young designers here. It pushes everyone forward and you can’t become complacent,” said Lee.

Taking part in Australian Fashion Week are 139 designers. Back on the ramp will be the established labels – among them Lisa Ho, Zimmermann, Ksubi, Nicola Finetti, camilla & marc, Alex Perry, Ginger & Smart, Jayson Brunsdon and Kirrily Johnston.

ELLIE HARVEY – Vintage wear … model Maya Yada wears a 1950s-inspired swimsuit by Karen Neilsen, which will feature in an Australian Fashion Week show. Photo: Steven Siewert .

Dani Shannon remembers the one-piece cotton swimsuit she had as a young girl perfectly: it was yellow, with a light blue pattern, ruching down the back, a little half skirt over the top of the thighs, and a halterneck.

”You just felt so feminine and pretty,” she said.

Ms Shannon, who is in her early 60s, was reminded of that costume yesterday when she saw the Herald taking photographs of a model wearing ”vintage” swimwear designed by Karen Neilsen. The 1950s-inspired costumes will be shown at the Australian Fashion Week this Friday.

”See how she’s [the model] got a little sense of there being a bit of a cover here for the tummy, that was also part of the look,” said Ms Shannon. ”It’s very evocative of lazy summer days, and games on the grass, and all-day picnics. [You would] play games until you were all hot and sticky and then you’d go for a swim, and come back, and there’d be the cakes and the desserts.”

Neilsen said her retro collection was inspired by old photographs of her mother and father at The Entrance, where they used to go on holiday as a young couple.

”My dad’s family had a beach house there. There were some great shots of them when they were young before they were married … I can remember holidaying there as a kid as well,” she said. Neilsen says she is particularly fond of the jukeboxes, milk bars and camping of the time.

”I just love that era,” she said, explaining she also drew on 1950s Hollywood icons such as Grace Kelly and the holiday resorts of Palm Springs in California.

With ruching, lace trim, pompoms, and frills – or ”little embellishments that remind me of the ’50s” as she calls them – Neilsen said she gets requests from interested older women despite her target market being aged 16 to 25.

”[It's] something that this new generation of teenagers haven’t seen, you know, so it’s all new to them, even though we may have seen it.”

Neilsen has been designing swimwear for almost 15 years. This is her second range in cotton, called ”Aloha Hearts & Flowers”.

A swimwear model once herself, Neilsen grew up in the 1970s with crochet bikinis.

”I just love swimwear, it’s just always been part of my life,” she said.

by amileigh

Here we have a collection of sales I have gathered for you from the depths of the World Wide Web, as well as other sources who shall remain anonymous.

by MelanieHick on Apr 20 2010, 09:50AM

The wearing of jeggings earn Lily Allen, Beyonce and Lady Gaga a big thumbs down.

Beware, the latest fashion monstrosity is a crime against jeans. And leggings. And women.

And the sight of those of us unfortunate enough to accidentally end up wandering behind a pair heading up Rokeby Road.

For those who are yet to happen upon the hideousness that are leggings made to look like denim – also known as “jeggings” – you have been warned.

The danger should have been obvious when fashionistas coined yet another ridiculous term (fusion fashion almost never works – remember “skorts”) to describe the melding of two clothing options that should remain forever separate.

Jeans, or leggings – choose one.

The sole aim of this invention seems to be to allow for what appears to be denim to be wrapped very, very tightly onto one’s legs, tighter than the tightest really skinny jean.

This means wearers run the risk of their legs taking on the look of plump sausage meat ready to burst through the skin.

But that’s not the real problem. It’s the fact that the leggings appear to be jeans, thereby giving the wearer the added incentive to don the jeggings without the appropriate complimentary garment on top.

Leggings should never be worn as pants. Wear them with a dress. Or skirt. Or even long knit that works as a dress for winter.

Leggings worn as pants have long been a bugbear of mine. But people keep on doing it, even though it almost always looks completely shocking (unless you are a size 8, toned, amazing glamazon – and we don’t need to worry about those types because they’d look gorgeous in a head-to-toe pink velour romper).

Actually, even then, those thin leggings that get progressively greyer the higher up the thigh you go, highlighting the very areas most women don’t want to highlight, can challenge the shapeliest of models.

But even more perplexing than the reasons why thin women choose to don the jeggings is the reason why curvy women choose to follow them.

I might sound harsh, but there are many women out there wearing leggings as pants who really, REALLY shouldn’t. These women look beautiful wearing clothing items designed to flatter, not suction on.

The risks are wide and varied. They include camel-toe.

Enough said. 

Source: watoday.com.au

Toned: Miranda happily displays her taut stomach and enviable curves in a hot pink bikini and denim hotpants.

It’s not hard to see what first attracted Orlando Bloom to girlfriend Miranda Kerr.

The stunning model, who has been dating Pirates of the Caribbean star Orlando for the past three years, showed off her enviable curves as she celebrated the 15th Anniversary of the Victoria’s Secret Swim Catalogue.

Wearing a shockingly bright pink bikini, Miranda, 26, looked toned and tanned as she posed for photographs, but the Australian star admits she has to work to maintain her svelte figure.

She said: ‘The first step is eating healthy. I predominantly eat organic when I can. I eat extremely healthy because when I do, I have more energy.

‘I love spinach, avocado, lots of greens and broccoli.’

However, Miranda admitted she does sometimes enjoy a treat and occasionally likes to splurge on fattening foods.

She added to E Online: ‘I’m pretty much 80 percent healthy, 20 percent indulgent, because I don’t believe in depriving yourself.’

While Miranda was criticised earlier this year for her tiny frame, the model insists she takes her responsibility as a role model seriously, and would never put her health in danger.

She explained: ‘As soon as you step into the public eye you need to take responsibility for the people you are influencing.

‘Body image is something that the majority of young women struggle with and I do think it is important that models are seen to be healthy and at a weight that works for their body type.’

But, unlike some celebrities who claim they are blessed with toned figures that do not need exercise to maintain, Miranda is refreshingly honest about her workout regime.

As well as enjoying yoga, Pilates and weight training, Miranda also likes ‘to go on the stepping machine if I’m a hotel and I can’t get outside.’

Miranda, who has worked with Victoria’s Secret since 2007, also revealed her tips for choosing the right bikini to flatter your body shape.

She said: ‘Everyone has different body shapes so it’s best to find a swimsuit that flatters your individual shape.But most importantly, with the right attitude and confidence any swimsuit will look good!’

A keen advocate of practising what you preach, Miranda recently starred in a cheeky ‘Bikini Mixer’ video for the lingerie company, where she shows off her figure in a series of bikinis and even displays her flexibility by performing the splits.

Sydney Confidential’s Annette Sharp

WHEN swimsuit model Lara Bingle was exposed as the new woman in cricketer Michael Clarke’s life, the media quickly determined that Australia at last had its own Posh and Becks.

Clarke, who was then cutting a flamboyant off-field figure in an expensive new Ferrari, was widely regarded as a nice bloke and a talented cricketer but he was not a luminous personality.

If there was one thing that could elevate the young cricketer’s profile overnight it was a beautiful and slightly famous It girl.

As good luck or providence would have it, there was one It girl who happened to be on the market: The Where The Bloody Hell Are You? tourism campaign model Lara Bingle.

A GOOD SPORT

THE pretty blonde Bingle, then 19, had spent much of 2006 recording the television show Torvill & Dean’s Dancing On Ice for the Nine Network and had, in her down time, developed a taste for high-profile athletes.

She was linked to Cronulla bad boy Greg Bird in March 2006 but denied a dalliance, saying she had no idea why Bird had sent “rude and “unsavoury” messages to her phone.

The following month rumours spun out of control: A hook up with Easts pin-up Craig Wing and a rendezvous with Tigers star Benji Marshall.

But the most sensational headlines were in December after she was forced to deny a dalliance with married AFL bad boy Brendan Fevola, who she met on The AFL Footy Show three months earlier.

Fevola’s wife Alex, the mother of his then four-month-old daughter, would later confirm the pair had had an affair that jeopardised her marriage.

As with Bird and Wing, Bingle was in denial.

“There is no affair,” she said at the time. “Just because I’m single anyone thinks they can say anything they want about me. It’s just not fair.”

What the model hadn’t forseen was the release by Fevola’s in-laws of a series of voicemails they claimed were left by Bingle on Fevola’s phone.

In one a young woman pleads: “I don’t know what I’ve done. (I heard) something about you getting back with your wife. I can’t believe you would do that.”

This week’s news that Bingle planned to sue Fevola following the publication in Woman’s Day of a topless photo – allegedly taken by Fevola during their affair – has been seen as her belated admission.

THE AMBITIOUS MODEL

THE publication of the four-year-old photo of Bingle in the shower would have raked over old wounds for not just for Bingle but also the agent who steadfastly stood by the model in the aftermath of her affair with Fevola.

When Priscilla Leighton-Clark signed 18-year-old Bingle in July 2005, she became the fourth agent to represent the teenager in as many years.

Less than two years later Leighton-Clark would become the first to sack the model when, weary of issuing denials on her client’s behalf concerning the Fevola affair, she was forced to accept the rumours were true.

An embarrassed Leighton-Clark ended the association in May 2007.

She would not be the last agent to reject the model.

Bingle, or “Bucky” as she was nicknamed as a 13-year-old due to her large teeth, was discovered after walking into a Surf Dive ‘N Ski shop where she was spotted by a scout for a tween model agency.

“She had this incredible look – so fresh with great eyes and skin. She is the ultimate Cronulla girl and who doesn’t want to look like a Cronulla beach girl?” said Starlet agency co-owner Petra Delaney in a 2007 interview.

Delaney said she hoped Bingle’s success would mirror that of renowned Cronulla supermodel Elle Macpherson.

After two years with Starlet and with a portfolio of catalogue work to her name, 15-year-old Bingle was picked up by the prestigious Chadwick’s agency.

The man who signed her, Chadwicks’ managing director Martin Walsh, this week recalled Bingle as a “sweet” girl but, at 170cm, quite short for a model.

He recruited her on the same day that he signed fellow Shire beauties Cheyenne and Tahyna Tozzi after seeing all three girls in a Westfield Shoppingtown competition.

But, although Chadwicks had previously fostered stellar careers including that of Macpherson, Bingle’s association with the agency fizzled after a year.

“Lara wanted her career to go faster than we wanted for a 15-year-old,” Walsh said.

The young model’s mother Sharon Bingle, who had been securing television ad campaign work for her daughter since she finished primary school, was also eager for her daughter’s career to flourish, particularly on TV.

Convinced a great opportunity was around the corner, Bingle dropped out of high school at St Vincent’s College in Potts Point in Year 10.

Suddenly a free agent, she signed with Vivien’s agency and is believed to have been only 16 when she flew to Milan to live and work as a lingerie and swimsuit model.

A year on, the association with Vivien’s was over – a Vivien’s agent this week said: “We always liked her. She was very young.”

She was soon knocking on the door of Leighton-Clark’s agency.

In 2006, Leighton-Clark would bring Bingle to international attention as the girl in the Where The Bloody Hell Are You? ad campaign.

A role on Channel 9’s Torvill & Dean’s Dancing On Ice followed that same year.

It was while on the set of the show that she met Clarke – the one sportsman she would be linked to who who didn’t have a reputation as a ladies man. Clarke, a close friend of Shane Warne’s, is said to have become instantly smitten.

PUP

BINGLE was introduced to the man cricket fans know as “Pup” by Clarke’s good mate, fellow cricketer Michael Slater.

Slater and Bingle were both contestants on Nine’s Dancing On Ice. After meeting the cute blonde on the set of the program during the May to August recording season, “Slats” is said to have invited his mate along to see the program and volunteered to arrange a meeting.

Bingle and Clarke started dating in January 2007, yet it was reported at the time that Bingle had started texting Clarke in the aftermath of the Fevola affair.

Regardless, the 24-year-old cricketer fell hard and fast for the 19-year-old. He called off his relationship with then live-in girlfriend and sweetheart of eight years Erina-Lea Connelly, who later admitted she thought she and Clarke would marry.

Two years after their relationship began, Clarke proposed marriage to the petite blonde and, to his joy, 21-year-old Bingle accepted him and his 4.7 carat engagement ring.

THE SUPER BRAND

HAVING finished third on Torvill & Dean’s Dancing On Ice Bingle, now one half of a power couple, had the world at her feet.

Executives at the Nine Network, impressed by her televisual charms, signed her to a one-year contract with a view to developing her talent and employing her on one of Nine’s reality-based programs.

She was soon posing in cricket pads, gloves and a bikini for Nine’s cricket coverage and planning to be rich and famous.

“It’s a dream to be in the position where I am now,” she said at the time. Despite the hype, the network let Bingle walk after her initial training.

“She was just terrible in front of the camera,” a Nine producer said this week.

Anxious at being without representation for six months, Bingle’s boyfriend soon put her in touch with a top agent who would build on her successes – Clarke’s man at Quarterback International, Chris White.

He quickly brought in a handful of contracts which saw the model perfectly cast as the sexy, silent mannequin.

She was in familiar territory as Speedo’s swimsuit model in a contract rumoured to be worth more than $200,000.

A deal with Vodaphone was a departure from sexbomb but equally lucrative.

The couple launched energy drink Synergy in late 2009.

But the super brand potential offered under the shared Quarterback banner held little appeal to Bingle, who was soon yearning for a fashion label to call her own.

A PRINCESS EMERGES

SPOILT by a devoted fiance who showered her with lavish gifts including a luxury $300,000 Aston Martin sportscar and a $6 million Bondi Beach ocean-front address, in October Quarterback’s White said the company and Bingle were parting ways.

Bingle was on the look-out for an agent with serious fashion credentials.

After meeting with Hush Communications’ Debbie Coffey, Bingle’s friend and Harper’s Bazaar fashion editor Christine Centenera recommended a publishing executive at her magazine, Deb Baker, be enlisted to manage Bingle’s brand and chase opportunities in fashion and television.

In December Baker left her job and started searching for opportunities in Bingle’s chosen fields but at every turn is said to have been thwarted by the national market perception that Bingle is only a cute Sydney It girl and not a national brand. The association lasted three months.

“She doesn’t do anything. She’s never worked,” said one brand expert this week. “To earn the respect of the Australian market, you need to have held a job. Wanting to be a media personality is not enough.”

Although Baker has never spoken about what went wrong, she is said to have become increasingly frustrated by Bingle knocking back work.

LAST MAN STANDING

THIS week Bingle at last signed an agent. Max Markson, Sydney’s wiliest operator, who boasts Corey Worthington, Chk Chk Boom girl Clare Werbeloff and The Girl in the Cupboard Natasha Ryan among his clients, is now representing Bingle’s interests.

The first business day after Markson announced himself as Bingle’s new manager, the model found herself on familiar ground – a sex scandal.

The Bingle and Fevola affair was rehashed on the pages of Woman’s Day this week with a four-year-old photo of Bingle topless in the shower.

A media storm erupted. Soon enough it was Markson in the middle, breathlessly announcing that Bingle would sue, “striking a blow for women’s rights”.

But the target would be Fevola, not the magazine that published the picture.

While most legal commentators talked openly of the unlikeliness of Bingle winning such a defamation case, many were asking why it was that the model wasn’t suing the magazine that published the photo.

By week’s end that had become crystal clear – the magazine in question was right in the bidding war for Bingle’s side of the story.

By week’s end Woman’s Day had stumped up the required $200,000.

Markson this week crowed that he has plans to transform Bingle into Australia’s Kate Moss. He spruiked: “I think Lara’s fantastic. I’ll support her, I’ll look after her. There will be ambassadorships, fashion contracts, TV presentation roles, anything she wants. She is a big name and is about to become much bigger.”